'Tis the Season

by Allison Martin

It really is the season.

Those aren’t just words from the classic “Deck the Halls”. It’s the truth. Parties every weekend, seasonal drinks at your favorite coffee shop, bells piercing your eardrums outside Walmart… you just don’t see this stuff all year. It’s only here for now.

‘Tis the season”. The words echo through the holidays because you don’t go look at Christmas lights in July. Gingerbread houses aren’t a thing in April. It’s a reminder that some things only fit in their season. Outside that window of time, it just doesn’t work. The phrase has a bit of subtle urgency to it. Whatever you want to do, do it now.

Soon, this season and all that it brings will be finished, and a new one will begin.

Though we are all in the Christmas season together, we’re also in a season of life all our own. Singleness to newly married to empty nests, and everywhere in between. Times of fulfillment, and emptiness. This season may be everything you’ve always hoped for, or one you’re counting down the days until it ends. Or maybe, again, somewhere in between.

Let this be a simple reminder that there is beauty in every season. Yes, even this one. But more than that, there is purpose.

There are opportunities of ministry uniquely available to the season you’re in. They fit for you right now, not in spite of where you find yourself in life, but because of it.

I have two little girls running around this crazy house. It’s going to take some advance planning for me to grab a group of teenagers and spend an afternoon playing pickleball and showing that I care. But for someone in a different season, that might just work.

Someone in that same season wouldn’t feel very comfortable inviting moms with kids over to just spend time together. But I have girls that love to play, my coffee maker is pretty decent, and I have a whole cabinet with extra mugs… so I could do that.

We might not all have time for an afternoon full of phone calls or handwritten cards - unless you’re recently retired. And then you might.

It’s easy to overlook the opportunities of this season, dreaming of another one. But we will live through this season just as surely as we’ll endure January and February before spring arrives. This season will come and go on God’s schedule, whether we make the most of it or not. But maybe if we looked closely at our passions, our schedules, and those people around us, we could find some handfuls of purpose. Just for this season.